In giving the following sketch of the history of Eugenics I am obliged to be egotistical, because I kindled the feeble flame that struggled doubtfully for a time until it caught hold of adjacent stores of suitable material, and became a brisk fire, burning freely by itself, and again because I have had much to do with its progress quite recently.

The word ` Eugenics' was coined and used by me in my book Human Faculty, published as long ago as 1883, which has long been out of print ; it is, however, soon to be re-published in a cheap form.* In it I emphasized the essential brotherhood of mankind, heredity being to my mind a very real thing ; also the belief that we are born to act, and not to wait for help like able-bodied idlers, whining for doles. Individuals appear to me as finite detachments from an infinite ocean of being, temporarily endowed with executive powers. This is the only answer I can give to myself in reply to the perpetually recurring questions of Why? whence? and whither?' The immediate `whither?' does not seem wholly dark, as some little information may be gleaned concerning the direction in which Nature, so far as we know of it, is now moving-Namely, towards the evolution of mind, body, and character in increasing energy and co-adaptation.

I have often wondered that the poem of Hyperion, by Keats-that magnificent torso of an incompleted work-has not been placed